CGSC is a transdisciplinary working group committed to reflecting critically on the relationship between contemporary transformations typically associated with globalization and the political futures that may be opened or obstructed by them.

Brett Story: Land of Destiny

Please join The Committee on Globalization and Social Change, MARCH 2 for an evening with:

Brett Story

Filmmaker and Geographer, University of Toronto

Land of Destiny (80 minutes, 2010)

Friday, March 2nd, 2012 | 6.30 – 8.30 pm

Segal Theatre

The CUNY Graduate Center

365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10016

A hard-working petrochemical town is rocked by revelations that its workers suffer an epidemic of cancers. But even more terrifying is the looming spectre of deindustrialization and joblessness.

Retired pipefitters serving fries, basement musicians, boilermakers and volunteer firemen, heartbroken widows and an optimistic mayor – the lives of a diverse medley of characters intersect to reveal the dramas and contradictions of an industrial town out of sync with a post-industrial economy. In the rich fabric of the cityʼs landscape – rows of boarded storefronts, the bright sprawl of petrochemical plants and the swollen rooms of hospital wards and crowded bars – one finds a microcosm of the 21st century. A portrait of a working-class city in paralysis and a meditation on work and place in the modern economy, Land of Destiny offers an intimate story about work, struggle, and survival.

Brett Story is a writer, organizer, and independent documentary filmmaker based out of Toronto. She is currently working toward a PhD in geography at the University of Toronto, conducting a project about the relationship between prisons and cities.